


I Want To Hold Your Hand

by melonbutterfly



Series: Only Vaguely Similar [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Backstory, M/M, Sentinel/Guide, sentinel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney's backstory, and their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want To Hold Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Title from that Beatles song. :)

Looking back, Rodney can say he's always been asexual.

Unfortunately, at the time it hadn't been that simple.

*

The first time Rodney's eyes fell on John – that moment when everything suddenly made sense, the tenseness he had been vibrating with since O'Neill had entered the facility, when he suddenly _knew_ – his first thought had been "I'll bend over three times a day for him if that's what he needs" and "I'll pretend to like it" and "I'll do anything as long as I get to keep him."

He can never tell anyone this but John, because nobody else will understand what a huge concession this had been on Rodney's part – how his world had turned on its axis from one moment to the next without any conscious decision being involved.

Later, he'd been terrified by these thoughts, and even more by the fact that they still held true; that they probably always would be. He'd do anything for John, anything John needed, anything to keep John – because he needed John too, but more importantly, he _wanted_ John. Wanted him more than he had ever wanted anything or anyone in his life. Not in a sexual way, but in any way that counted.

What had mattered more, though, was that John had been equally terrified when Rodney had finally told him, a long time later. To John, it didn't matter that he himself didn't want any of these things; he had made Rodney promise to stop him if he ever did something Rodney didn't like or want, and they had both pretended to believe him when he had.

Rodney knew John would never, ever do anything that Rodney didn't like or want. He knew that even more than he knew that, if it ever happened, Rodney would let him, and he wouldn't regret it.

*

The first thing John had said to him had been "You are my Guide" and " _You_ are my Guide" and "You are _my Guide_ ", and Rodney had said "Yes" and "Yes" and "Yes".

Some so-called scientists claimed that, if a Sentinel's Guide or a Guide's Sentinel died before they reached puberty and, more importantly, before they could meet and bond, then the surviving Sentinel or Guide would turn asexual as a consequence. Asexual Sentinel-Guide supposed pairings weren't true matches – they were just the closest match the Sentinel and Guide had met to date, and because they had never known their true match and, due to the true match's death, never would, they became delusional, believing the person they had met were their mate when in fact they were not.

It's complete bullshit. If anyone will ever say that to either of their faces, Rodney will have to choke a bitch.

After he has pulled John off them.

*

Why the hell would he want to stick his dick into anyone, anyway? It was messy and really, if you thought about it, sort of weird and disgusting. Why anyone would want a dick in them, he didn't know. His dick would stay safe where it was, and not get involved with anybody else's genitals. Especially not with pussies or assholes; the mere thought was repelling.

*

Sex had always played an important role in Rodney's life. For that, he didn't need to have it; he just thought about it a lot, from early puberty on.

At first he had, like any teenage boy, thought a lot about it because he was masturbating.

Actually, he was so busy masturbating that it took him years to realise that he was perfectly happy with that – he had been fifteen, and Mary Kelley from a High School close to his University had walked him home after he had tutored her in maths and kissed him on his dorm's doorstep before running away giggling. The kissing had been nice, as had the holding hands and the fact that they became a couple; however, one afternoon he and Mary had been snogging on the couch in her parents' living room when she had put a hand high up on his thigh, and Rodney had twitched and pulled away and said, "Uhm, I don't..."

He hadn't known how to finish that sentence, and it took him a couple of hours until he realised that the "I have never done this" that Mary had deduced from his aborted sentence had actually been an "I don't want this" and an "I don't do this".

Rodney had run away from Mary's house because Mary had kept touching him even when he had said "No", and she had never spoken to him again.

All Rodney had felt was relief.

*

Fact of the matter is, nobody truly understands Sentinel-Guide bondings from a scientific standpoint. As of yet, nobody has been able to find scientific markers or really any logical connection that indicates which Guide belongs with which Guide; even in the twenty-first century, it all is still a huge mystery.

Science likes mysteries even less than it likes ludicrous theories.

*

From the incident with Mary, Rodney had deduced that he was homosexual, which was a theory standing on shaky legs since he fantasised about both boys and girls. Just like anything up until that point pertaining his sexuality, he had shrugged it off; homosexuality among Sentinels and Guides was generally overlooked. Homosexual mundanes had to struggle to be accepted, but it was clear that nature had intended the Sentinel and Guides to be the way they were, and since they were all infertile anyway, no matter which gender, who could argue with that?

But there was the nagging doubt that had set in when Rodney had realised, only hours after leaving Mary, that he didn't want her – _anyone_ – to touch him _at all_. And not only did he not want it, he actually found the thought of sex sort of repelling.

Not wanting sex at all – that wasn't so okay. Everybody knew sex wasn't about reproduction for Sentinel-Guide pairs, and even the Catholic Church had stayed far away from that one. But sex was important to Sentinel-Guide pairs; it was believed to be the only way to achieve a proper bond, and it was claimed to be the only way to maintain it. Sex strengthened the connection between the Sentinel and the Guide, and thus it strengthened the Sentinel and Guide and the protection they could offer a community.

Sex was vital to a healthy bond.

*

When Rodney was eighteen, he had grown so nervous about the fact that he didn't seem to feel the pressing need to have sex like other guys his age seemed to that he went and got himself a boyfriend.

Chay had been a nice guy; sort of smart, having skipped a grade and gotten into University on a scholarship, but, more importantly, he hadn't been pushy.

They had been together for three months when Chay's nagging about sex got more insistent – when he stopped letting Rodney distract him with kissing, handjobs and the occasional bad blowjob. Chay had wanted them to be a real couple, not just, as he put it, "some middle-school puppy romance".

Rodney had tried, but while before he had gotten hard with Chay before and had even managed to come if he tried hard enough and if he didn't manage to distract Chay from himself, this time he didn't even manage to get an erection.

Chay had thrown him out, yelling something about "repressed homophobia" and that Rodney should come back when he was ready to take it up the ass, because after this Chay would certainly not volunteer to be the first to bottom again.

Rodney had never come back, and while he had tried very hard to feel bad or like he had lost something, there had been only relief.

*

After Chay, Rodney had gone through a very bad period where he had been terrified that he was a sociopath, or possibly autistic. The latter wouldn't have been so bad, but was relatively impossible due to his status as an active Guide, but Rodney didn't want there to be only the possibility of sociopathy on the on the table, so he had stubbornly kept considering it.

It had gotten so bad that Rodney had one day, when he couldn't bear it anymore, fled to the Guide centre to beg them to incarcerate him, because he was clearly damaged.

Thankfully, the first Guide he ran across hadn't been of the "asexuality in Sentinel-Guide pairings is Wrong" school. Even better, Mariah had, from Rodney's terrified babble, been able to filter out what was actually going on and had connected the dots and him with another asexual Guide.

Gerard had been in his fifties and unbonded, and he had been able to put most of Rodney's worries to rest, even some of those about bonding. He knew many asexual Sentinels and Guides, even bonded ones, and the fact that asexual bondings were possible had calmed Rodney down a lot.

Later, Rodney had been furious that nobody in any of the Sentinel-Guide centres he had been to had thought to explain to him the mere _possibility_ of asexuality. It clearly existed, after all, and just in America alone there were over one hundred reported and certified asexual Sentinel-Guide pairs. The number of unregistered pairings and single Guides and Sentinels was probably much higher, because few couples actually were willing to go through the invasive and humiliating process of becoming a certified asexual pair.

Rodney was thankful to them all.

*

During their bonding, John had said "You're mine" over and over and over, and Rodney had clung to him, arms tight around his shoulders and legs wrapped around his waist.

John had wrapped them both carefully in all the blankets they could find, one on top of the other, building them a cocoon of soft darkness that nothing could penetrate. Then he had cradled Rodney between his legs, wrapping his arms around him tightly and whispering into the space between them.

They had only gotten out from under the blankets when the lack of oxygen had made their heads ache, and then they had only gotten enough of their faces out so they could breathe in the cold, fresh air. John had climbed on top of Rodney, cupping his head with both hands and nuzzling Rodney's face all over, and then he had rolled them both up tight once more and whispered all the promises he had made him all over again.

He said he'd keep Rodney forever, that Rodney was the best thing that had ever happened to John, that Rodney was the best thing on the planet – no, the galaxy, no, the universe, no, all the universes ever – and that nobody but John would ever again be allowed to touch him, that John would kill anyone who tried without permission. He had promised Rodney the moon and the stars, anything he wanted, John would bring it to him.

All Rodney wanted was John.

*

Three days after their bonding, they had kissed for the first time – a peck on the lips John had given him before he had had to go into his CO's office in McMurdo alone.

Rodney learned that he liked touching, that he liked touching a lot when he felt safe, when he knew his partner wouldn't want and didn't expect anything sexual, no matter where their hands wandered. John learned the same thing, though it took him a lot longer, and he also learned that he had an unexpected need to put his mouth on Rodney; something which took him a while to learn to accept and deal with.

*

Rodney likes touching John's cock. He likes cradling it in his hands, soft and delicate and so sensitive, and he likes that he can touch it anytime he wants – he likes that John won't get hard, that John will never get hard unless he's on his own. Sometimes he even puts it in his mouth and sucks a little, just because he wants to know what it feels like and tastes like in his mouth, and John will snort with amusement and affection and pat his hair.

*

Rodney likes that John completely ignores it when he gets a little hard when they touch. Rodney likes that John will never think that it's about sex, that Rodney might want something sexual from him after all.


End file.
